Stainless steel sculpture and salt water

Texas Gulf coast city is having a recurring problem with a large
"stainless steel" sculpture installation and would like to hear of
extended actions to take toward maintaining the pieces.  The artist
allegedly used an "inferior" grade of stainless steel, which does
exhibit signs of rust within a year of each "cleaning".  The
sculpture piece is located directly across from the sea wall and is
therefore exposed year round to the gulf coastal salt water
environment.  The sculpture is presently being 'maintained' by city
public works department and although there is no documentation, I
believe their treatment amounts to little more than 'scrubbing' to
remove surface rust followed by 'waxing' (with an unknown past wax
compound).  I new treatment proposal has been submitted (by someone
in the city) which wants to scrub the surface with OSPHO (not sure
what that is) followed by surface treatment with "lanacote" (a
product which was developed to inhibit corrosion between dissimilar
metals.  There has got to be a better way to protect these pieces
near salt water environments and I can't locate any prior treatment
cases in order to evaluate the merits of this proposal.  Please
review and advise as to this and/or alternate treatment scenarios.

Dennis A. Baltuskonis
Trinity University
210-999-8364


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:8
                 Distributed: Wednesday, July 21, 2004
                        Message Id: cdl-18-8-033
                                  ***